Facebook fined millions in Germany for incomplete reporting of complaints

Facebook has been fined two million euros in Germany for failing to fully report the number of complaints it has received from users about illegal content, contrary to the law.

The company failed to publish a full semi-annual report last year on its handling of complaints from its users regarding illegal posts such as hateful postings. The report that Facebook published last year contained only “a fraction of the complaints about illegal content,” says Germany’s Bundesamt für Justiz. “This creates a distorted picture of the extent of illegal content and the way the social network handles it.”

In its transparency report for the first half of 2018, Facebook claimed to have removed 1704 problematic messages in 1704 cases. For example, Twitter involved 260,000 and YouTube 215,000. The published transparency report was also not exhaustive with regard to information on the organisation, the language skills of employees and the training of those responsible for handling complaints. Due to the incompleteness, Facebook has violated Germany’s Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, or NetzDG, which came into effect last year. That is why the BfJ has imposed a fine of two million euros.

The German justice points out that the way in which users of social networks can report complaints about illegal content must be transparent and unambiguous. However, Facebook offers two channels for reporting complaints and the NetzDG reporting form is relatively hidden from the general method of flagging posts. Facebook can appeal against the fine imposed by the BfJ.